Antinuclear `Die-ins` Bring 37 Loop Arrests

April 30, 1985|By Paul Sullivan.

Thirty-seven demonstrators were arrested in the Loop on Monday during three rallies protesting the use of nuclear weapons, police said.

Capt. James Maher of Central District police said the arrests were for disorderly conduct and obstruction of traffic at the intersections of State Street and Jackson Boulevard and State and Randolph Streets.

About 200 demonstrators gathered at the intersections at 9 a.m., noon and 4 p.m. to stage ``die-ins`` in which they laid down on sidewalks and in the streets, feigning death to portray the results of radioactive fallout from a nuclear war.

Antinuclear activists also rallied in cities and on high school and college campuses across the nation throughout the day to dramatize the after- effects of a nuclear war.

Organizers of an ad hoc national coalition of local antinuclear groups, which calls itself ``No Business As Usual,`` staged the demonstrations to publicize their cause and start a national peace movement.

``It`s easy to just go march in a park,`` said Richard Hutchinson, a local organizer. ``But the idea is to confront and disrupt the daily routines of people. We have to get them to take risks out of their normal lives and join the protest.``

Professor John Gerassi of Queens College in New York, a spokesman for the organization, compared Monday`s protests to demonstrations against the Vietnam War in the mid-1960s:

``It really can`t be compared with the later stages of the demonstrations because then there was a draft, and many people got radicalized simply because they didn`t want to die in Vietnam. I think the emphasis is like in the early stages in `65.``

Students staged similar ``no nukes`` demonstrations Monday at Loyola University, Northwestern University, the University of Chicago and Columbia College, according to organizers.

About 250 people gathered at the University of Illinois at Chicago medical school to release balloons with post cards attached explaining the medical effects of a nuclear war.

Maine South High School was one of several area schools where students tried to stage ``walkouts`` to protest the use of nuclear weaponry, but not many students were interested, according to one of the protesters.

``They all sorta wimped out,`` said Joy Geras, a Maine South student.

``Maybe it`s fun for some of them to say, `Oh yeah, we`re gonna bomb Russia.` But it`s sad to think that way in the end.``